OHIO 2004: 6.15% Kerry-Bush vote-switch found in probability study

[L. Coyote]

Discussion here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x259620

Defining the vote outcome probabilities of wrong-precinct voting has revealed, in a sample of 166,953 votes (1/34th of the Ohio vote), the Kerry-Bush margin changes 6.15% when the population is sorted by probable outcomes of wrong-precinct voting.

The Kerry to Bush 6.15% vote-switch differential is seen when the large sample is sorted by probability a Kerry wrong-precinct vote counts for Bush. When the same large voter sample is sorted by the probability Kerry votes count for third-party candidates, Kerry votes are instead equal in both subsets.

Read the revised article with graphs of new findings:

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

A small spreadsheet too:

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/xls/cuyahoga_t_tests.xls

[sam sarrha]

1. i am generally functionally illiterate.. but with this i am totally lost, who won.??

[Peace Patriot]

2. Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

It explains a lot when you realize that Bush and Cheney were not re-elected and are holding power illegitimately. The belligerence. The defiance of Congress. The defiance of 70% of the American people. The extreme tyrannical assertions--spying, torture, "signing statements." The out-of-sync-ness. Everyone realizes that Iraq is a disaster except them. The endless lying. Politicians who are beholden to the people simply don't act like this.

[saltpoint]

6. The Bush-Cheney-Blackwell-etc. axis in Ohio cheated both Ohioans

of their democratic role and the nation at large by denying the country a thoughtful statesman. I loved our ticket in 04. I loved the top of the ticket in 00.

Whenever I listen to Bush or Cheney speak, I am appalled that these two people are representing the rest of us.

Gore won in 2000; Kerry iin 2004.

Historians will savage the Bush administration, and properly so. I believe 2008 will be a tough fight but I think it goes blue. I like our chances.

[Ellipsis]

10. I agree historians will.

"I came to the city
And lived like old Crusoe
On an island of noise
In a cobblestone sea"

[saltpoint]

11. Hi to you, btmlndfrmr.

My dreams with the seagull fly...

You know the landscape.

Thank you.

[Mme. Defarge]

17. Why can't citizens from other States

form a class action suit against Blackwell & Co. for disenfranchisement?

[saltpoint]

20. I'll defer to DU's legal experts on that one, Mme. My own thought

involved a very deep crevice, several thousand tons of fill dirt, and a fleet of bulldozers.

[L. Coyote]

21. There are other counties in Ohio. What else will turn up now?

Citizens can now investigate other counties, other races, other elections, with this method of cross-vote outcome probability sorting.

What made the difference was determining how each precincts cross-vote would count, then analyzing the results in relation to those probabilities.

This is descriptive statistics (not inferential), since we have all the votes instead of a poll, and therefore there is no margin of error (MOE). Tough to argue against the results compared to polling results with MOE.

[tbyg52]

3. Let's install the *real* winner in office! nt

[oldtimecanuk]

4. Are there going to be any repercussions to...

Kenneth Blackwell for his ovious cheating during the elections? Anybody know the answer to this?

Hope they string the bastard up along with all those involved from Diebold.

ww

[Ellipsis]

5. The arrow points to TRIAD equipment manipulation

as well as the "process" of the old voting equipment and the ballot cards.

[oldtimecanuk]

7. They have Triad? Did'nt know that.. thanks... eom

[Ellipsis]

8. in 2004 yes, the equipment has since been upgraded.

:hi: I believe they did use GEMS on the tabulators though. Someone else would have to confirm that.

[Peace Patriot]

9. The intro to the article is quite clear--and a very important article it is!

point of it. Unfortunately, the OP (above) omits punctuation, making a difficult techincal quotation harder to follow. But the actual article is quite clear:

----------

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes
© 2007 by James Q. Jacobs. All Rights Reserved.

Preface

"Simply put, Ohio votes were NOT counted as cast. Many votes were miscounted, and Kerry votes were counted for Bush. Numerous questions have been raised about the fairness of the 2004 Presidential election in the United States of America (US). In this article I focus on one election issue, punch card cross-voting—how votes cast one way were counted other than as intended, as a vote for a different candidate or option. Punch card voting has been replaced and, with so many election issues, this most egregious of flaws—counting votes wrong—has seemingly been overshadowed by e-voting concerns. I also focus on a particular region with one-tenth of the Ohio vote, Cuyahoga County.

(snip)

"Miscounted votes in Ohio came to my attention via press coverage. An incident came to light due to very high returns for third-party candidates in two Cuyahoga County precincts:

"'Cleveland Paper Cites Voter Problems, Votes Assigned to Wrong Candidates,' AP, 12/11/04, 'approximately 1,000 voters in the two precincts cast ballots just steps away at machines meant for the other precinct.'

"I was astounded to discover that an election could be so flawed in design.  I wondered, 'Why would two ballot orders be used in one location if votes could be switched?' and then, more importantly, 'How many votes were switched, and to whose advantage?'

I mistakenly thought 'How many votes were switched?' would be an easy number to define. Wrong-precinct voting occurred at a surprisingly high rate. Instead of immediate clear answers, trying to tally the miscounting led down a long path with many more questions, taxed my knowledge of statistics and quantitative methods, and produced unexpected findings of unfairness in the election process—all providing a political education my political science classes never even considered. The evidence raises suspicions about intentional manipulation of the election process directed at changing the outcome in favor of Bush. I eventually wondered, 'Were voters given the wrong ballots?'

"Many votes were counted for the wrong candidate or ballot option, and a significant portion of the cross-voting resulted in Kerry votes tallied as Bush votes. The 2004 Presidential election hinged on the Ohio results. According to exit polls, Kerry won Ohio. Instead, with a -3.35 percent differential in Kerry's tally, the results gave the victory and the presidency to Bush. With these circumstances, evidence of miscounted voting and Kerry-to-Bush vote switching have particular importance in determining the actual intent of Ohio voters, the reasons for the exit poll discrepancy, and the validity of the 2004 US Presidential election result."

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

-----------------------

The graphs are also very helpful.

[Peace Patriot]

15. Some more useful quotations/explanations:

Note: He's talking about punchcards, and how you might punch the card for Kerry, but if your card is tallied in a different precinct, where the order of the names is switched (which it must be by law), your vote would record for Bush or for somenone else (lost vote for Kerry). In some locations in Ohio, precincts were combined in one location, and some people voted in the wrong precinct.

The text above Table 6: Benedictine High School Voting Results (9 boxes down the page)

"The cases following illustrate the variable impact of wrong-precinct voting. Table 6 displays the most egregious cross-voting location, Benedictine High School, where major candidates were not collocated. Up to 215 people in precinct 1806 cross-voted for Kerry in precinct 1814, punching the third position using the precinct 1814 voting machines. Those 215 Kerry votes counted for Peroutka (K-p) using precinct 1806's ballot order. Also, up to 164 Kerry voters from (precinct) 1814 punched the first position, Kerry in precinct 1806. Those 164 ballots counted as Badnarik votes, the first position in precinct 1814. Meanwhile, Bush lost (only) 10 votes to Peroutka in precinct 1814."

--------

Also useful, from his Conclusions:

"In 2004, the Ohio Presidential voting results do not accurately reflect voter intentions. In Cuyahoga County, the election was flawed and the design appears to have been manipulated. At locations with several ballot orders in use, many votes were cast by voters crossing precincts, then counted other than as intended. At precincts with the highest Kerry support, the percentage of uncounted votes is inexplicably high. The obvious inference—intentional manipulation produced concentrated undercounting, cross-voting and vote-switching in areas of highest Kerry support—cannot be ignored in the face of the evidence and statistics."


-------

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

--------

Note: This study is incomplete, and the calculation of lost Kerry votes is still unknown, from what I gathered, at a glance. But the pattern of intentional switches from Bush to Kerry, or from Kerry to other candidates, seems clear. The author is dismayed at the lack of official investigation. Caveat: I don't want to see this study used to push electronic voting, which is even more manipulable--and faster and more undetectable. Also, from what I've gathered so far, legal investigation and prosecution is warranted. There was a quite intentional loss of Kerry votes, and gain of Bush votes, in the biggest Democratic region of the state. They did it by swtiching the punchcards, and tabulating them on a different machine, where Kerry's name appeared in a different place on the ballot.

[Botany]

12. Nothing to see here .... move on nothing to see here

but 2 people were just convicted of rigging the recount in
Cuyahoga County.

And if they roll on head of elections Michael Vu and he leads
to former Ohio GOP chair Bob Bennett who just by chance was
chairman of the County BOE in Cuyahoga county ...... Bennett
goes to bush Cheney '04 ......

You know what will happen .... nothing because to this minute
the press wants to kill this story.

[roseBudd]

13. This means that a really low tech method that anyone who had access to ballots

prior to tabulation could pull off. All you had to do is determine which ballots or precincts were likely Dem voters and put that stack of ballots in an adjacent precincts column and the punch that belonged to Kerry would be counted as a Bush vote because of mandatory candidate rotation. Being the first name on the ballot rotated.

The punchcard ballots from Ohio 2004 did not have the precinct code punched so the only way the tabulator knew what precinct it was reading was the header cards that had to precede any precinct change. The precinct codes are printed on Ohio punchcard ballots. So Ohio doesn't use punchcard technology to identify precinct, but adjacent Indiana does. Hmm.

And the Warren County ballots didn't have any precinct codes printed on them at all.

Once the ballots were detached from the stub with serial number, there is no way to identify if the ballot came from a particular deck. Hmmm, interesting.

Here is the machine that counts punchcards. What do you wanna bet there is one that can sort and cull ballots?

http://www.cardamation.com/

[Botany]

16. and that is why in Warren County .... header cards were found

mixed in with the vote.

[roseBudd]

27. in Warren County header cards had Bush holes punched and there were lots

of ballots with only 1 punch, for Bush

[L. Coyote]

58. Sixth Circuit Holds Ohio Voting Systems Unconstitutional

Friday, April 21, 2006 - posted by Dan Tokaji
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/2006/04/sixth-circuit-holds-ohio-voting.html

The Sixth Circuit today ruled on a challenge to the State of Ohio's use of punch-card and central-count optical scan voting systems, holding that the use of both systems violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The decision in Stewart v. Blackwell reverses the district court's contrary holding, which had rejected this claim after a bench trial. The Sixth Circuit also vacated and remanded on plaintiffs' claim that the challenged voting systems disproportionately deny the votes of African Americans, in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The opinion may be found here. (Disclosure: I'm co-counsel on the case with the ACLU and argued it before the Sixth Circuit.)

This is the first decision to hold that the use of punch-card or central-count optical scan voting equipment violates the Constitution. ....

.....

This is one of a series of cases challenging election administration practices that result in the disproportionate denial of minority votes -- practices that I collectively refer to as "The New Vote Denial" in a forthcoming article.

(The New Vote Denial: Where Election Reform Meets the Voting Rights Act http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=896786)

Other vote denying practices that have been subject to Section 2 challenges include voter identification and felon disenfranchisement laws. These cases, I argue, are qualitatively different from the more common form of Section 2 cases, vote dilution, in which the collective voting strength of racial minorities is weakened, even though they are allowed to vote and have their votes counted. The precise test applicable to practices that result in the disproportionate denial of minority votes has been less than perfectly clear in prior cases, but the Sixth Circuit decision is a step toward recognizing that such claims may proceed.

[L. Coyote]

59. Amended Complaint Filed in Ohio Ballot Tampering Suit (KLBNA v. Blackwell)

This still has to play out. If in court, it will be interesting. Will it be settled and, in effect, not receive a public airing???? That discussion starts here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=259620&mesg_id=263327


FROM: Amended Complaint Filed in Ohio Ballot Tampering Suit (KLBNA v. Blackwell)
Posted by eomer, Tue Oct-10-06 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x452431

In part, the complaint reads:

========

.... Defendant Blackwell and
those acting in concert with him under the color of law, including but not limited to the
Ohio Republican Party; Robert T. Bennett, Chair, Cuyahoga County Board of Elections
and State Chair, Republican State Central and Executive Committee of Ohio; Matthew
M. Damschroder, Director, Franklin County Board of Elections; Samuel Hogsett,
Technician for Election Systems & Software; and Daniel Bare, former Director,
Clermont County Board of Elections, have conspired to deprive Plaintiffs of their right
to vote and have, in fact, deprived Plaintiffs of their right to vote by

.......

3. The election fraud, vote dilution, vote suppression, recount fraud,
and other violations included, but were not limited to, public election officials and
private contractors who conspired with, worked together with, obtained significant aid
from, or whose conduct is otherwise chargeable to some or all the Defendants. Upon
information and belief, the Defendants engaged in, directed others to engage in, and/or
neglected to ensure the proper procedures were in place and followed so that public
election officials and private contractors committed the following acts:

A. Arranged for the use of tens of thousands ballots in high-performance
Democratic precincts that were prepunched for a third-party presidential
candidate so as to create an overvote and disqualification of such vote
when cast for Kerry.

.....

D. Tabulated tens of thousands ballots cast in one precinct for Kerry as
if they were ballots cast in another precinct where, through ballot rotation
in the sequence of the presidential candidates, such votes would be
counted as having been cast for Nader, Peroutka, Badnarik, or for Bush.

========

[galloglas]

14. The Cosmic Cat keeps unraveling this!

Ragged Cloak of Electoral Deception.

How much longer until the little children cry out,

"LOOK!! The Emporer has Has NO Clothes!

(and neither does that mean-looking, bald-headed SOB with him!)"?

[Peace Patriot]

18. "How much longer"? Well, that's up to us, I think. We're reduced to word of

mouth communication, almost--greatly aided by the Internet. I was very heartened by the amount of Absentee Ballot voting in the last elections. It meant that ordinary people were trying to find a way around the rigged electronics--and were doing so in large numbers. They were trying to boycott the electronic voting machines. Many probably don't know that AB votes are mostly just scanned right into the rigged electronics. But what they were TRYING to get was a hand-counted paper ballot, something they trust. It was very indicate of the public's state of knowledge--which is vastly, vastly improved over 2004. Now many are aware that something's wrong with the machines--but they don't know quite what it is or how to remedy it.

I have never ever felt that restoring our democracy was going to be easy, or quick. I've suffered some rollercoaster up's and down's, too. But I've finally evened out, emotionally. You can't remedy all that is wrong with our system in a day. It's going to be a long term struggle. But the point is that more and more people are perceiving the problems, getting informed and getting active. The '06 elections tell you that. What a change! What a breath of fresh air! What a momentous event it is that the American people are at least being HEARD--even if action by our still not very representative Congress is slow. What occurred in '06 is that the voters outvoted the machines, in many cases. That is fabulous news. Very heartening. And I can't tell you how different things feel to me now--both as to current political trends (My God, they're all talking about ending the war! Even the Republicans!) and on the long term struggle for election reform, from where things were on Nov. 3, 2004. Black Wednesday.

Be of good cheer. The top rung of politicians and the corporate news monopolies are the hardest to change, and the slowest to change. But virtually everybody beneath that level seems to be well aware that "the emperor has no clothes." And, on the war, many at top--Senators, Generals, even news monopolies--are not just perceiving it, they are saying it. They're not saying he wasn't elected. Because, you know, for the politicians, that brings their own elections into question. And, for the news monopolies, it brings their whole game of propaganda into question. But they are saying it as to policy and competence, and Bush-Cheney deafness to everybody. And that is a huge change.

[caruso]

19. TruthIsAll on uncounted and switched votes

Lots of numbers here.

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm

Click on:
The National Exit Poll Timeline

Scroll down about 20 screens until you get to:
Sensitivity Analysis II
____________________________________________________________

What was the percentage of Kerry votes cast that were switched to Bush?

The majority of uncounted votes are in heavily Democratic minority
districts. A fair estimate is that 75% were for Kerry.

Given:
125.74 million total votes cast (2004 Census)
122.295 million recorded
3.445 million uncounted
59.027 million recorded Kerry votes

Assume:
2.584 million (75%) uncounted votes were for Kerry
95% turnout of Gore and Bush 2000 voters

Solution:

12:22am National Exit Poll
Voted in 2000

DNV: did not vote

.......TIA True Vote Model
......Weight Kerry Bush Other
DNV 21.49% 57% 41% 2%
Gore 38.23% 91% 8% 1%
Bush 37.83% 10% 90% 0%
Other 2.45% 71% 21% 8%

Share 100% 52.56% 46.43% 1.01%
Votes 125.7 66.09 58.38 1.27

Kerry's True Vote (T) = 66.09mm

Kerry True Vote (T) = Recorded (R) + Uncounted (U) + Switched (S)

Solving for S:
S = T - R - U = 66.097 - 59.027 - 2.584 = 4.486
PS = S /(R+U) = 4.486 / 61.611 = 7.28%

Therefore, 4.486mm (7.28%) of the total 61.611mm votes cast for Kerry were switched to Bush.



SWITCHED VOTE RATE
(sensitivity to Gore and Bush 2000 voter turnout)

Bush Gore Turnout
Turnout 95% 96% 97% 98% 99% 100%

95% 7.3% 7.6% 7.8% 8.1% 8.4% 8.7%
96% 6.9% 7.2% 7.5% 7.7% 8.0% 8.3%
97% 6.5% 6.8% 7.1% 7.3% 7.6% 7.9%
98% 6.1% 6.4% 6.7% 7.0% 7.2% 7.5%
99% 5.7% 6.0% 6.3% 6.6% 6.9% 7.1%
100% 5.4% 5.6% 5.9% 6.2% 6.5% 6.8%

________________________________________________________

[soswolf]

22. Day Late, meet Dollar Short...

Quotes about prophets being right abound...this is depressing

[L. Coyote]

24. "Day Late, and Dollar Short. Say Hello to the New Congress!!" n/t

[IWantAChange]

23. 'blatant evidence of irregularities and unfairness of organization continues to be ignored'

says it all

[On the Road]

25. I Like the Direction of This Analysis

I just want to understand better what the assumptions are. More descriptive background would be helpful as opposed to a lot of the statistics-speak.

[OnTheOtherHand]

29. we can break it down

For instance: take all the Cuyahoga precincts in three-precinct polling places. Separate those precincts into two piles: the precincts where the Bush vote could be inflated by (intended) Kerry votes from other precincts at the same polling place, and the rest (where the Bush vote could not be inflated by miscounted Kerry votes). For this post I'll call them the inflatable precincts and the uninflatable precincts. Overall, Kerry's margin is about 6 points smaller in the inflatable precincts than in the uninflatable precincts.

I have some doubts about the magnitude, although not many about the direction. If you use (3-precinct) polling place as the unit of analysis and compute the difference between Kerry's margin in the inflatable precinct(s) and uninflatable precinct(s) within each polling place, the average difference is more like 2.5 points. The discrepancy owes to differences in number of votes cast, but those size differences themselves aren't statistically robust. So a good part of that 6 points may be due to luck -- although, at best, it is very hard to tell. I'm reserving judgment for now. One would really like some better way of controlling for the underlying partisanship of the various precincts.

It is tricky to extrapolate from this result (whatever it is) to the total impact. Within the 3-precinct polling places, there are somewhat fewer votes in inflatable precincts than in uninflatable precincts; a 6-point decrease in Kerry margin in the inflatable precincts obviously wouldn't mean a 6-point decrease in Kerry margin overall. I'm not sure how representative the 3-precinct polling places are -- and about 12% of Cuya votes were cast in single-precinct polling places.

[L. Coyote]

30. "It is descriptive stats, and there is no margin of error"

You wrote: "take all the Cuyahoga precincts in three-precinct polling places. Separate those precincts into two piles: the precincts where the Bush vote could be inflated by (intended) Kerry votes ....."

IT'S DONE! That is what the study did for the entire county, every precinct. And all that is in the dataset now. You can download the Access database into Systat or any major stats app and have at it.

Your other points obfuscate the story too, deflating the finding. You are proposing to do what was done. And the result IS 6.15% change in differential. Replacing the findings and the vocabulary in the article, under development for two years, with an opinion and a new lexicon that removes the probabiity analysis is detrimental to the discourse.

The actual number of voters was considered in the probability calculations. The analysis cannot be more robust since every voter is included.

Regarding the critique of controlling for underlying partisanship of the precincts, the precincts are paired at the locations. For each precinct in one probability subset, there is another in the other subset at the same location. Sorry, no fish on that hook either.

You don't need to extrapolate from the result. Just look at the data for other subsets. This is not inferential statistics. It is descriptive stats, and there is no margin of error because we are analyzing every voter, not a sample poll of voters.

[OnTheOtherHand]

31. well...

As to the first, yes, my point was that it doesn't take much space to summarize your 6.15% finding.

I don't think I've "obfuscate(d)" anything whatsoever, but if you would rather be ignored, I am certainly willing to do that. Happy, in fact, if this is how you respond to substantive posts. Go be a "discourse" unto yourself and see how that works for you. (I'm not banging the drums for "inflatable" -- it just worked in context.)

The fact that the precincts are paired doesn't assure effectively controlling for partisanship.

Descriptively, the numbers speak for themselves. Inferentially, it's a matter of judgment. If you don't think there is an inferential question here, then why are you reporting the results of inferential tests? Make up your mind.

[loudsue]

26. Now the REST OF THE NATION needs to hear about it.

Where in the hell is the media on this???

:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick:

[roseBudd]

28. It also explains the C. Ellen Connaly anomaly

[L. Coyote]

32. Do you know which other Kerry rich areas had punch cards? n/t

[Awsi Dooger]

34. Summit County used punch cards

That's Akron. Kerry won Summit County, 57-43.

I have notes from late 2004, which I assume are correct although I don't think I ever checked them. They indicate Dayton also used punch cards. That's Montgomery County, which Kerry won narrowly, 51-49.

The other major county using punch cards was Hamilton, the Cincinnati area. Bush won that county 53-47, which sounds bad until you compare it to the small rural counties, most of which used punch cards, and where Kerry was predictably trampled.

[L. Coyote]

35. "Vote-switching in areas with highest Kerry support..."

You wrote: "Kerry won Summit County, 57-43...."

The pattern in Cuyahoga is vote-switching in areas with highest Kerry support. Look to the inner cities, especially minority neighborhoods. Note the trend line in this graphic:



The break seems to be 2/3 and over.

[L. Coyote]

40. Conyers: "precincts in Montgomery County ..undervote rate of over 25%"

I'm rereading the Conyers Report: http://truthout.org/Conyersreport.pdf

"Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio
Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff"

" ... The problem was particularly acute in two
precincts in Montgomery County which had an undervote rate of over 25% each –
accounting for nearly 6,000 voters who stood in line to vote, but purportedly declined to
vote for president...."

"... in Cuyahoga county, poll worker error may have led to little known thirdparty
candidates receiving twenty times more votes than such candidates had ever
received in otherwise reliably Democratic leaning areas..."

"... In Cuyahoga County alone, the lack of guidance and the ultimate narrow
arbitrary review standards significantly contributed to the fact that 8,099 out
provisional ballots were ruled invalid, the highest proportion in the state. ..."

"... offices of Democratic Staff and of Democratic
Judiciary Committee Members were deluged with e-mails and complaints about the
election. While such complaints are still being processed, close to 100,000 such complaints were
received. As of this writing, the Judiciary Democratic office alone is receiving approximately
4,000 such e-mails a day. More than half of these complaints were from one state: Ohio. ..."

"... it was found that a full and fair count would have resulted in Gore, not Bush, being elected
the Forty-third President of the United States. Subsequent investigations also
uncovered rampant disenfranchisement in Florida, particularly of African-American voters ..."

"... A simple lesson may be drawn from these two contexts: elections are imperfect. They are
subject to manipulation and mistake. It is, therefore, critical that elections be investigated
and audited to assure the accuracy of results. As Senator Kerry’s attorney recently noted, only
with uniformity in the procedures for such an investigation and audit “can the integrity of the
entire electoral process and the election of Bush-Cheney warrant the public trust. ..."

[BeFree]

33. Well, well, well

We knew we were right all along, and we've been called all kinds of names and been smeared by all but just a few.

Folks, you know who you are.... take a bow. The curtain is rising and yall are about to be finally applauded for your efforts.

Gawd, but it has been a long two years. Yeeha!

[caruso]

36. 2004 Uncounted and Switched Votes: Effect on Electoral and Popular vote

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm

Uncounted and Switched Votes

Given:
125.74 million total votes cast (2004 Census)
122.295 million recorded
3.445 million uncounted

Assume:
2.584 million (75%) uncounted votes were for Kerry
95% turnout of Gore and Bush 2000 voters

Calculate:
The number of votes cast for Kerry switched to Bush.

Solution:
True Vote (T) = Recorded (R) + Uncounted (U) + Switched (S)

Solving for S:
S = T - R - U = 66.097 - 59.027 - 2.584 = 4.486mm
PS = S/(R+U) = 4.486 / 61.611 = 7.28%


SWITCHED VOTE RATE
(sensitivity to Gore and Bush 2000 voter turnout)

Bush Gore Turnout
Turnout 95% 96% 97% 98% 99% 100%

95% 7.3% 7.6% 7.8% 8.1% 8.4% 8.7%
96% 6.9% 7.2% 7.5% 7.7% 8.0% 8.3%
97% 6.5% 6.8% 7.1% 7.3% 7.6% 7.9%
98% 6.1% 6.4% 6.7% 7.0% 7.2% 7.5%
99% 5.7% 6.0% 6.3% 6.6% 6.9% 7.1%
100% 5.4% 5.6% 5.9% 6.2% 6.5% 6.8%



RECORDED VOTE
(in millions)

2000
Gore Bush Other Total
51.004 50.459 3.275 104.738
48.70% 48.18% 3.12%

2004
Kerry Bush Other Total
59.027 62.040 1.228 122.295
48.27% 50.73% 1.00%


2004 NATIONAL EXIT POLL
12:22am vote shares
Feasible weights

Voted
2000 Weight Kerry Bush Other Votes
No 21.49% 57% 41% 2% 27.02
Gore 38.23% 91% 8% 1% 48.08
Bush 37.83% 10% 90% 0% 47.56
Nader 2.46% 71% 21% 8% 3.09

Total 100% 52.57% 46.43% 1.00%
Votes 125.74 66.10 58.38 1.26

_________________________________________________________________

VOTE DISCREPANCY ASSUMPTIONS:
(in thousands)

UNCOUNTED VOTE SHARE
Kerry 75%: 2,582
Bush 24%: 826
Other 1%: 34
Total 100%: 3,442 (2.74% of Census 125.7mm)

SWITCHED VOTES
(in thousands)

7.6% (4,486) of Kerry net (counted) votes switched to Bush
(6.8% of Kerry true vote)

KERRY VOTE RECONCILIATION
TRUE 66,095 100.0%
Unctd -2,582 3.91%
------ ------- ------
Net 63,513 96.09%
Switch -4,486 6.79%
------ ------- ------
Recorded 59,027 89.30%


_________________________________________________________________


SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS I:
Various effects of incremental switched vote rates
(assume 75% Kerry share of uncounted votes)

...........................Popular Vote...............Electoral Vote
Switch Kerry Bush.........Kerry Bush Margin Kerry Bush State Flip to Bush
Actual 48.27% 50.73% 59027 62040 -3013 252 286

7.6% 52.57% 46.43% 66095 58380 7715 349 189 CO FL IA MO NM NV OH VA
7.0% 52.28% 46.72% 65740 58739 7001 336 202 CO FL IA MO NM NV OH
6.0% 51.81% 47.19% 65150 59330 5821 325 213
5.0% 51.35% 47.65% 64560 59920 4640 325 213
4.0% 50.88% 48.12% 63970 60510 3460 325 213 CO FL IA NM NV OH
3.0% 50.41% 48.59% 63379 61100 2279 289 249
2.0% 49.94% 49.06% 62789 61691 1099 289 249
1.5% 49.70% 49.30% 62494 61986 508 289 249 IA NM NV OH
1.0% 49.47% 49.53% 62199 62281 -82 284 254 IA NM OH
0.0% 49.00% 50.00% 61609 62871 -1263 264 274 IA NM


SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS II:
Effect of incremental uncounted and switched votes on Kerry's EV

Electoral vote increases by an average of:
1 for each 1% change in the Kerry uncounted vote share;
10 for each 1% change in the vote switch rate

Kerry Electoral Vote
Switched Kerry share of Uncounted Votes
Votes 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75%

7.6% 325 325 336 336 336 349
7.0% 325 325 325 336 336 336
6.0% 325 325 325 325 325 325
5.0% 298 325 325 325 325 325
4.0% 289 289 289 289 298 325
3.0% 289 289 289 289 289 289
2.0% 264 284 284 289 289 289
1.0% 264 264 264 264 264 284
0.0% 252 252 252 252 264 264


SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS III:
Effect of incremental uncounted and switched votes on Kerry's vote share


Kerry Vote Share
Switched Kerry share of Uncounted Votes
Votes 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75%

7.6% 51.88% 52.02% 52.16% 52.29% 52.43% 52.57%
7.0% 51.60% 51.74% 51.87% 52.01% 52.15% 52.28%
6.0% 51.13% 51.27% 51.40% 51.54% 51.68% 51.81%
5.0% 50.66% 50.80% 50.93% 51.07% 51.21% 51.35%
4.0% 50.19% 50.33% 50.47% 50.60% 50.74% 50.88%
3.0% 49.72% 49.86% 50.00% 50.13% 50.27% 50.41%
2.0% 49.25% 49.39% 49.53% 49.66% 49.80% 49.94%
1.0% 48.78% 48.92% 49.06% 49.19% 49.33% 49.47%
0.0% 48.31% 48.45% 48.59% 48.72% 48.86% 49.00%


SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS IV:
Effect of incremental uncounted and switched votes on Kerry's vote margin.

The margin increases by:
69,000 for every 1% increase in Kerry’s share of uncounted votes
1,181,000 for every 1% increase in the switched vote rate

Kerry Vote Margin (in thousands)
Switched Kerry share of Uncounted Votes
Votes 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75%

7.6% 5994 6338 6682 7026 7370 7715
7.0% 5285 5629 5974 6318 6662 7006
6.0% 4105 4449 4793 5137 5482 5826
5.0% 2924 3268 3613 3957 4301 4645
4.0% 1744 2088 2432 2776 3120 3465
3.0% 563 907 1251 1596 1940 2284
2.0% -617 -273 71 415 759 1104
1.0% -1798 1454 -1110 -765 -421 -77
0.0% -2979 2634 -2290 -1946 -1602 -1258

___________________________________________________________________

[L. Coyote]

37. Assumptions are like birds in a tree

You qoute someone (right?): "Assume: 2.584 million (75%) uncounted votes were for Kerry
95% turnout of Gore and Bush 2000 voters ..."

Assumptions, when working with vote tallies, are not definitive. It is like guessing. The precinct-level votes are reported. Analysis at that level is descriptive statistics, w/o margin of error. Have you (or this author) moved on to any such analyses?

[caruso]

39. Have you heard of Greg Palast?

He's the investigative reporter who uncovered the Florida 2000 fraud. Greg had to go work for the BBC because the U.S. media did not want him to report his findings.

Greg reports that the majority of spoiled votes are in heavily (80-90%) Democratic minority precincts. The estimated 75% Democratic share of the total uncounted vote is a conservative one.

The 2004 Census reported 125.7 million voted. The recorded vote was 122.3mm. The 3.4mm discrepancy is a combinaton of spoiled, absentee and provisional ballots, all of which were never counted.

This is a google search on 'Palast uncounted votes':
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2003-52,GGLD:en&q=palast+uncounted+votes

Here's a link to one Palast article:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php

Kerry Won. . .
Greg Palast
November 04, 2004


Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. In the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided—known as “spoilage” in election jargon—because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Drawing on what happened in Florida and studies of elections past, Palast argues that if Ohio’s discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots. So far there's no indication that Palast's hypothesis will be tested because only the provisional ballots are being counted.

Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .

Kerry won. Here are the facts.

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. At 1:05 a.m. Wednesday morning, CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. The exit polls were later combined with—and therefore contaminated by—the tabulated results, ultimately becoming a mirror of the apparent actual vote. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.

Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted.

Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

Whose Votes Are Discarded?

And not all votes spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African-American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely—leaving a 'hanging chad,'—or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks.

"And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.

So here we go again. Or, here we don't go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren't even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz). Nor are they demanding we look at the "overvotes" where voter intent may be discerned.

Ohio is one of the last states in America to still use the vote-spoiling punch-card machines. And the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell, wrote before the election, “the possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state’s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity.”

[L. Coyote]

54. "The dirty little secret of Aerican politics is...."

You mean that Greg Palast? Well, that's not a truth he uttered. We all knew undervoting, et.al., was a biased disenfranchisement, hence (we wish), HAVA.

To Greg I've said, "The dirty little secret of American politics is the voting counted other than as intended" and hence this thread.

[Bill Bored]

38. One Question:

I've always loved this theory, but wouldn't there have to have been a lot more third party votes?

[L. Coyote]

41. Pairing of cross-voting makes third-parties a distinct subset

There are two Kerry cross-vote patterns, Kerry to third-party candidates or Kerry to Bush and disqualified. These are two distinct groups. What happens in one isn't determinative of what happens in the other. The best indicator of Kerry to Bush vote switching is it's paired outcome, the disqualified count which remains unreported in Cuyahoga County.

Keen insight! You make a valid point under an assumption that this was random. In fact, your conclusion points to manipulation, right? Under the assumption it was election manipulation, vote-switching produces the desired outcome moreso than cross-voting to third-party candidates.

Under an assumption of manipulation, how would you do it if you were trying to switch votes? Just shuffle ballots between precincts? What patterns are possible where in the process?

[Bill Bored]

42. Wouldn't Disqualified have been reported as Undervotes? nt

[L. Coyote]

43. In Cuyahoga County, the "disqualified" votes are not yet reported.

So, they are non-votes (properly called undervotes in elections without an unreported blank candidate slot you can vote for).

For every precinct that can vote-switch Kerry-Bush, an adjacent precinct cross-votes Kerry-disqualified. Of course, there is no assurance that there was random and equal cross-voting in these two directions. It is an assumption of random cross-voting, but the stats indicate non-random patterns. Nonetheless, the percentage on non-votes is a useful stat to indicate where Kerry-Bush vote switching is likely happening. A better indicator is the election results for those candidates in a probability sort.

[eomer]

44. Richard Hayes Phillips findings from examining Cuyahoga County ballots:

41. I returned to view and photograph the ballots on July 17-20 and July 31-August 1, 2006, being especially interested in regular ballots for which the tabulators recorded no vote for president. Among the 782 such ballots observed, I found only 136 genuine "undervotes", on which there were punches for other offices or issues, but no punch for president. I found 56 absolutely blank ballots with no vote for anything at all, some of which must have been substitutions for ballots cast by actual voters, as poll workers counted fewer voted ballots than voter signatures in the poll books, and Cuyahoga County auditors found too few unused ballots remaining. I found 177 ballots containing punches for "Candidate Disqualified," the column created when Ralph Nader was removed from the ballot. These votes were intended for other candidates, but were shifted to the Nader column in multiple-precinct polling stations when voters were allowed to place their punch cards in machines intended for precincts other than their own. Because the tabulators were programmed to count the Nader column as zero, the only way to prove what happened was to examine the actual ballots. In one precinct alone, Cleveland 6M, I found 81 ballots on which a punch intended for Kerry had been shifted to "Candidate Disqualified." [ See EXHIBIT J and EXHIBIT K. ] In Cleveland 6L, at the same polling station, punches intended for Kerry were shifted to Bush, who received 82 (20.1%) of the regular ballots, but only 2 (4.8%) of the absentee ballots.

42. I observed 362 ballots in Cuyahoga County which contained two or more punches for president, thus creating an "overvote." This is consistent with three complaints posted on www.voteprotect.org in which voters in Cuyahoga County said that they were given punch cards with the hole for a presidential candidate already punched out of them. No more than 12 of these 362 ballots observed were pre-punched for Bush only. Most of the extra punches were for third-party candidates. A punch for any two candidates for the same office will spoil the ballot. Analysis of 213 ballots with multiple punches for president in 13 Cleveland precincts indicates that, at a minimum, Kerry lost 172 votes, and Bush lost 7 votes.

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/documents/DeclarationofRichardHayesPhillipsfiledbyRichardHayesPhillips.pdf

[L. Coyote]

45. The ballots are preserved per Court order, for now...

and they need to be counted for disqualified voting sooner than later. The vote for disqualified is especially important because it is always paired with Kerry-Bush vote-switching in an adjacent precinct.

This quote points to multiple irregularities. Spoiled ballots by over-voting should be assessed comparatively in precincts with cross-voting vs. without.

Regarding the areas of the state with higher vote numbers down ticket, where did the presidential punch go there? An uncounted slot too?

[L. Coyote]

46. Cadre of pundits .. "spinning conspiracy theories about stolen elections"

"Convictions in Ohio Recount Tampering Case
Two Cuyahoga County election officials were convicted ....

"... Where the law prescribes a particular procedure, it's critically important that those procedures be followed -- even when it's certain that the outcome won't be affected. The failure to follow prescribed procedures will only contribute to public distrust of the integrity of our election system, something that nobody wants (except that small cadre of pundits who have made a career out of spinning conspiracy theories about stolen elections). The crimes of which these officials have now been convicted are therefore serious ones ... even though they didn't affect the outcome of the 2004 election.
- posted by Dan Tokaji "

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/2007/01/convictions-in-ohio-recount-tampering.html

I wonder who "that small cadre of pundits" who want "public distrust of the integrity of our election system" are, AND if, once identified, we can convert them to election reformers?

[L. Coyote]

47. Rotatori derides Baxter as the "not so special prosecutor," ....

Baxter preps for recount-rigging trial. By TOM JACKSON | Sunday January 14 2007, CLEVELAND

"Erie County prosecutor to try case against three in Cuyahoga County accused of secret recount

"Cleveland grandmother Jacqueline Maiden, 59, is married to a preacher at a Baptist church and has never before been in trouble with the law, her attorney says.

"But Maiden and two other employees of the Cuyahoga County Election Board, Rosie Grier and Kathleen Dreamer, face trial Tuesday on seven separate criminal counts apiece alleging that they rigged a December 2004 recount of Cuyahoga County ballots in the 2004 presidential election...."

MORE: http://www.sanduskyregister.com/articles/2007/01/14/front/134692.txt

[L. Coyote]

48. "ballots .. not shuffled .. streams of constant votes for .. Bush"

The gist of it: "... the plan fell apart ...when some of the stacks of ballots that had previously been counted were not shuffled, resulting in streams of constant votes for either President Bush or his challenger, John Kerry, drawing questions from observers at the official recount."

Ohio election workers' trial winds down
By M.R. KROPKO Associated Press Writer http://www.coshoctontribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070123/NEWS01/70123017/1002

“The intent was that everything would be pristine and everything run smoothly,” Baxter said.

He said the three defendants sought to conceal the prior selection and count of ballots.

“They knew they were breaching their duties,” Baxter said.

Ballots not shuffled .. streams of constant votes. ???

[L. Coyote]

49. "2004 Ohio Election Conspiracy Put To Rest" PLEASE Comment

2004 Ohio Election Conspiracy Put To Rest on BareKnucklePolitics.com
http://bareknucklepolitics.com/2004-ohio-election-conspiracy-put-to-rest/

Just add your comments there.

[L. Coyote]

50. Latest Breaking News: Cuyahoga Co. Elections Director Resigns (OH)

OhioChick caught this one as it happened. Here is the thread with lots of linked reading:

Latest Breaking News
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2719564&mesg_id=2719564

Election Reform
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x466951

[Ellipsis]

51. coyote kick n/t

[L. Coyote]

53. kick n/t

[L. Coyote]

52. PowerPoint: How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes

Here is the PowerPoint URL: http://jqjacobs.net/politics/vote_switching.ppt

[Blue Shark]

55. Pretty Tricky...

...while we all look to hackable DREs and Optical Scan Scams...it might just have been good old "Hanging Chad" punch cards that ripped off Democracy.

[L. Coyote]

57. Think about it from a forensics perspective

You wrote: "...while we all look to hackable DREs and Optical Scan Scams...."

Might it be more like, "while all the spin is engineered to detract from the known crimes..."

Once you know a crime was committed, the actions and motivations of all the players begin to become clear in the new perspective of hingsight. There were a lot of Piped Pipers drawing attention in the wrong directions AND they still are. Notice who ignores which news, or rushes out a new story to detract from news breaking elsewhere that illuminates the crimes.

Remember, over half of the people dressed as hippies in Chicago were lock-step covert disrupters. What is the proportion in DU and online regarding this issue generally? And how much money are they raking in from well-meaning activists to further the deceits?

How big would a cover-up of a stolen election have to be, especially if someone is publishing the truth somewhere? What would such a cover-up look like, in terms of web strategy? What detracted the most from the vote-switching between Nov. and the inaugration? Who ran those detractions? How much money did they collect?

[L. Coyote]

56. NEW U.S. House Ethics Counsel Hired = Former Cuyahoga Prosecutor

U.S. House Ethics Counsel Hired: Former Cleveland Prosecutor

Is this why? OHIO 2004: 6.15% Kerry-Bush vote-switch found in probability study

======

CLEVELAND (TDB) -- A former assistant prosecutor in Cuyahoga County has been hired as chief counsel for the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, the ethics panel which is chaired by Cleveland Democratic Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Dawn Kelley Mobley is a graduate of North Carolina Central School of Law and is licensed to practice in North Carolina and Ohio.

She was a trial lawyer in the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office and handled rape, homicide and drug cases. She also worked as a supervisor in the felony and juvenile justice sections. Tubbs Jones was the was the county prosecutor in Cleveland before her election to the OH-11 seat.

Mobley has been working for the U.S. Attorney's in Washington. Her new role could make her fairly high-profile if there is any kind of congressional scandal. Democrats has promised an emphasis on ethics. .....

http://thebellwetherdaily.blogspot.com/2007/02/us-house-ethics-counsel-hired-former.html

[L. Coyote]

60. NEW PowerPoint Posted = All the Graphs from the Article.

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes

Now has two PowerPoints.
All the figures from the article are in a new one = http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio_figures.ppt



The article highlights presentation = http://jqjacobs.net/politics/vote_switching.ppt

[L. Coyote]

61. FLAWED election board's security = keys to ballots not secured

Now comes this, the keys to the Cuyahoga vote counting room were not secured.

So we know,
A.) Ohio ballots did not have precinct marks, and
B.) the ballots were not secure. Yes, that's FLAWED!

Plus analysis reveals that ballots ended up in, or were cast in, the wrong precincts.

From the AP article:
========
Outside monitor criticizes election board's security

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID...
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 - CLEVELAND (AP)

The elections board in Ohio's most populous county failed to provide adequate security for the November election in terms of equipment, staffing and electronic voting, an outside monitor said.

The Cuyahoga County elections board failed to secure keys to vote-counting rooms, did not comply with state laws governing bipartisan staffing, left computer users unaccountable by allowing a shared password and experienced an unexplained cable connection to vote-counting computers, according to the critique by Cleveland State University's Center for Election Integrity.

County commissioners hired the center to review the work of the election board after a botched primary in May .........

[L. Coyote]

62. House Judiciary Committee to Investigate Deceptive Election Practices

And, the hearing begin:

House Judiciary Committee to Investigate Deceptive Election Practices
http://judiciary.house.gov/newscenter.aspx?A=773

For Immediate Release - March 06, 2007

Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-M I) announced that the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing, entitled, "Protecting the Right to Vote: Election Deception and Irregularities in recent Federal Elections." The hearing will be held TOMORROW, March 7, 2007 at 3 pm in 2141 Rayburn House Office Building.

"Election intimidation and deception have become an unfortuante aspect of recent federal elections, threatening to undermine Americans' confidence in a democratic government," Conyers said. "This hearing will expose some of the problems that voters have experienced, the causes of those problems, and offer leadership in developing meaningful solutions. Our goal is to protect every citizen's constitutional right to vote, and to thwart any future attempts to disenfranchise eligible voters through fraud, deception and intimidation." ....

[L. Coyote]

63. Mar. 23, 2007, MSM: "Secretary of State tightens screws on Elections Board"

BIG NEWS is the comlaint includes 2004!!!!!!!!!!!!

Secretary of State tightens screws on Elections Board
Friday, March 23, 2007
Joan Mazzolini - Plain Dealer Reporter
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1174639719208580.xml&coll=2

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner on Thursday accused two holdouts on the Cuyahoga County Elections Board of violating state election law as part of her move to oust them.

Brunner filed a complaint that also accuses board Chairman Bob Bennett and board member Sally Florkiewicz, both Republicans, of misfeasance and nonfeasance. The 18-page document specifically charges the pair with failing to:

Adopt adequate procedures for election recounts, resulting in the felony convictions of two board employees on charges of rigging a recount.

.....

Ensure the efficient administration of elections from 2004 through 2006.

.....more....

[autorank]

64. PowerPoint Presentation from the Artice at this link

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/vote_switching.ppt

[L. Coyote]

69. Priner-friendly Word version now online too, at this URL:

Word version: http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio_times.doc

[L. Coyote]

65. A Growing GOP Problem in Ohio

A Growing GOP Problem in Ohio
Thursday, April 05, 2007
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,264308,00.html


Although the presidential election is 19 months away, the Republican Party has a real and growing problem in Ohio that could cost it the White House in 2008.

Simply put, the GOP brand is in trouble in Ohio, more so than it is nationally. That matters because in 2004 Ohio was the key to an Electoral College majority, and could well be the same in 2008.

Since the 2004 election in which President Bush narrowly defeated John Kerry, the undercurrent in Democratic thinking for 2008 has been to hold the states Kerry won and to turn Ohio from red to blue.

If Ohio's 20 electoral votes were to go to the Democrats, assuming that no other states switch allegiance, that would give them the White House.

And as simplistic as that strategy sounds, it could turn out to be successful because of the woes that are besetting the Republicans in the Buckeye State, more than in any other key battleground.

..................

[philb]

66. Documentation of the ways votes manipulated in Ohio in 2004

www.flcv.com/ohiosum.html

[glengarry]

67. Ohio exit poll anomalies

I came across some interesting Ohio exit poll stats from that TIA motherlode.

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#Ohio

Note the vote share anomalies between the 12:22am Ohio exit poll (1963 respondents) and the 2:06pm Final (2020 respondents). Just like in the Final NEP, vote shares changed abruptly and uniformly by 3% in favor of Bush.

1) Party ID: Democrat/ Republican 38/35 to 35/40, a 7.9% (3/38) shift. With the original 38/35 weights, Bush needed 17% of Democrats to match the recorded vote. He had 8%.

2) Ideology: Liberal/Conservative 21/32 to 19/34, a 9.5% (2/21) shift. With the original weights, Bush needed 23% of Liberals to match the recorded vote. He had 13%.

3) Senate race: Democrat/Republican 43/57 to 36/64, a 16.3% (7/43) shift. With the original weights, Bush needed 14% of those who voted for the Democratic senator. He had 7%.

4) First-time voters: Of the 14% who were first-timers, 55% were for Kerry. Are we to believe that Kerry only won 47% of previous voters?

5) When Decided: Of the 21% who decided in the 30 days prior to the election, 62% voted for Kerry. Are we to believe that he only won 45% of the other 79%? What pre-election poll had Bush leading in Ohio by 10 points prior to Oct 1?


more...

[L. Coyote]

68. NOTE the small number of additional respondents cannot account for the

vast change in the shifts. Less than 3% more respondents were added.

There has to be something wrong with this somewhere. Have you identified that? Whose mistake is this?

[glengarry]

71. It was NOT a mistake..the final exit poll was rigged to match the vote count.

Read about the 2004 National Exit Poll - The Smoking Gun

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#SmokingGun

"The Final NEP was forced to match the recorded vote by adjusting the “How Voted in 2000” weights to Bush 43/Gore 37%. The Bush 43% weighting is impossible since it implies that 52.59mm of the recorded 2004 total of 122.3mm voted for Bush in 2000. But this is 2.13mm more than his 50.46mm recorded vote. And it’s 3.9mm more than the 48.7mm Bush 2000 voters who were living in 2004. Furthermore, since some Bush 2000 voters did not vote in 2004, his true weighting had to be lower than 39.8%".

The Final Ohio Exit Poll was also rigged to match the vote count.
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#Ohio

"They argued that the Ohio exit poll does not indicate fraud. But they ignored the massive documented evidence of uncounted and switched votes, apart from voter disenfranchisement. And two election workers were convicted of rigging the recount. They criticized the 12:22am Ohio exit poll (1963 respondents) which Kerry won by 52-48%, yet believe the 2:06pm Final (2020 respondents) in which the vote shares were changed in favor of Bush to match a miscounted Ohio recorded vote. This was just like the final 2pm National Exit Poll in which the vote shares were changed from the 12:22am timeline to match a miscounted National vote. With the original weights, it would have been necessary to inflate the Bush vote shares to implausible levels. An exhaustive statistical study of actual ballots in Ohio’s Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) indicated that 6.15% of Kerry’s votes were switched".

[L. Coyote]

72. I referred to the numbers in your post

You report:

12:22am ..1963 respondents
2:06pm ...2020 respondents

1) Party ID: .... 7.9% (3/38) shift. With the original 38/35 weights, Bush needed 17% of Democrats to match the recorded vote. He had 8%.
2) Ideology: .... 9.5% (2/21) shift. With the original weights, Bush needed 23% of Liberals to match the recorded vote. He had 13%.
3) Senate .... a 16.3% (7/43) shift. With the original weights, Bush needed 14% of those who voted for the Democratic senator. He had 7%.

=================================
Note, the number of respondents added cannot make up this degree of difference. We are in agreement here. There is something wrong somewhere, and it is very apparent. This all seems to be self-contradictory. That's what you are saying, right?

[Febble]

73. TIA still refuses to acknowledge

that there is simply no mystery as to why the second set of numbers matched the official count, while the first set didn't.

The reason is that the pollsters expect that their sample will be subject to sampling bias (as all polls are) and they reweight their crosstabulations in line with what they assume is the true population, given by the official count.

Whether or not in 2004 the discrepancy WAS in fact due to sampling bias, as opposed to a fraudulent count, the fact is that what they did was absolutely standard practice. So if we are interested in FRAUD as a possible explanation for the discrepancy (which TIA, like the rest of us is) there is SIMPLY NO POINT in continuing to post the second set of numbers. The first set are a good approximation to the vote shares that the pollsters estimated based on the exit poll responses, plus pre-election polls, and for the second one might just as well substitute the vote-count itself.

In fact, the pollsters published their actual pre-result estimates in January 2005, in two very helpful forms: they published their estimates made only from the responses themselves, taking into account the geographical stratification of their sample (the "Best Geo Estimate"), and the adjusted estimates made with input from their pre-election polls ("composite estimates").

http://www.exit-poll.net/election-night/EvaluationJan192005.pdf

pages 21 and 22.

If TIA was really interested in the discrepancies between the poll and the count, he'd use the ones derived from those estimates - which actually tend to be rather larger than the ones he gets from his screenshots. But he won't, because it seems to suit his narrative that there was some skulduggery going on in the polls.

There may well have been skulduggery going on in the count, but the change in poll numbers was simply a result of standard post-stratification reweighting to the assumed population and is done every year, and was done in 2006. And again in 2006, the un-reweighted numbers were posted for all to download, and then replaced with the re-weighted numbers. No-one attempted to hide anything. I give details of the process here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/4/135126/905

So we have good figures to go on as to how large the exit poll discrepancy was where. Why TIA continues to insist on using these, and implying (although he knows perfectly well it is false) that there is some fishy significance to the difference in respondent totals is beyond me. Actually, the final sample in Ohio was about 3000.

[glengarry]

75. Yes, you are correct, there IS something VERY wrong with the Finals

It's obvious that it's not just the "tell" in the numerical difference between the 1963 respondent Ohio exit poll (which Kerry won by 52.1-47.9%) at the 12:22am time line and the 2020 respondent Final (which he lost by 50.9-48.6%). And it's also not just the "tell" between the 13047 National Exit Poll respondents at 12:22am (which Kerry won by 51.4-47.6%) and the Final NEP of 13660 (which he lost by 51.1-48.5%).

More important, TIA has clearly proven that the FINAL NEP (43 Bush/37% Gore) weights in the Voted 2000 demographic are impossible. Therefore one can not place any credence in the Final NEP. Period.

There was no corresponding "Voted 2000" demographic in the Ohio Exit Poll. But as TIA has shown, and you concur, the changing weights and vote shares in those other demographic categories are extremely implausible.

Let's face it. There is no longer any question that Bush stole the election. And the early exit polls were the first INDICATORS of the theft. As massive evidence accumulates daily in Ohio and elsewhere, the pre-election AND exit polls have been CONFIRMED.

For anyone to still claim that the pre-election and exit polls (which showed Kerry winning Ohio and nationally) were bogus, then they are implicitly claiming that the FINAL exit polls (which were MATCHED to the recorded vote count) are correct.

The corollaries:
1) The Final exit polls were NOT rigged; it is SOP to match the final to the recorded vote count.
2) Bush really DID win the popular vote.
3) There was virtually ZERO vote-miscounting.
4) The only significant fraud was voter disenfranchisement, which would not show up in the exit polls..
5) BushCo and Rove did not SWITCH votes.
6) The voting machines and central tabulators were NOT rigged.
7) Gore really did win
8) Yes, our elections need fixing.

But why do they need fixing if Bush won the election fair and square? They can't have it both ways, but they try.

[L. Coyote]

70. The True Goal of Gonzo-Gate: Tamping Down the Black Vote

The True Goal of Gonzo-Gate: Tamping Down the Black Vote

The issue and evidence raised in this thread fits perfectly into the overall pattern in "Gonzo-gate" under investigation by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Inner-city Cleveland is where the highest rates of vote-switching took place. The article illustrates how the highest Kerry support areas were targeted.

The True Goal of Gonzo-Gate: Tamping Down the Black Vote
by F. Vyan Walton
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_f__vyan__070424_the_true_goal_of_gon.htm

From Democracy Now.

Another scandal is brewing inside Alberto Gonzales's Justice Department. Former Justice Department attorneys have publicly accused the Bush administration of politicizing the department's Civil Rights Division which was formed 50 years ago to protect the voting rights of African-Americans. According to a recent report by the McClatchy newspapers, the Bush administration has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

And since black and minority voters tend to favor Democrats by over 10 to 1 - they have become the perfect targets to help Republicans over the hump in marginal races.....

.....more....

========================

[L. Coyote]

74. May 2, 2007. HTML version edited.

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes

[philb]

76. the switch occurred in lots of different small ways-including suppression & dirty tricks

in addition to touch screen switching in a few large counties
and manipulation of vote counting in several counties
www.flcv.com/ohiosum.html

[kster]

77. Oh you again

:rofl:

[L. Coyote]

78. Petition to Congress requesting an investigation into the Presidential Election

A Petition to Congress requesting an investigation into the Presidential Election of 2004
http://www.petitiononline.com/uselect/petition.html

Sign online.

To: United States Congress

TO: All members of the Congress of the United States of America; all Senators and Members of the House of Representatives

A Petition to immediately and without delay open a joint investigation into potential wrongdoing in the Presidential Election of 2004, specifically to investigate the potential of voting machine manipulation or purposeful malfunction, especially electronic voting machines manufactured and supplied by Diebold, Inc.; Electronic Systems & Software (ES & S); Sequoia Voting Systems, and others, and also to identify and investigate all allegations of improper conduct by election officials, workers, observers, challengers and operatives and employees of both major parties concerning the voting process including intimidation, dissemination of improper information, manipulation of registration records, improper handling of actual voting ballots and, in general, any and all potential improprieties which could have led to improper or inaccurate election results.

Such inquiries should not be limited to any particular state, precinct or district but strive to examine the voting process in any and all areas in which there is even the slightest indication of impropriety, but especially in the states of Florida, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas and New Hampshire, and not limit such investigation, and expand such investigations to cover Senatorial races as well, especially those in Kentucky, Florida and South Dakota.

We, the undersigned, request that our elected representatives act in accordance with the Constitution of the United States of America in a legal, impartial and expedient manner for an open hearing before the people of the United States and if such wrongdoing, illegal practices, manipulation of voting records or processes is of such a nature to indicate egregious or extensive tampering, alteration or misappropriation of the voting process that the violators be brought to justice and remedies, potentially including a nationwide audit, recall, recount or new election be imposed by your bodies.

We feel it is our patriotic duty to request such action from you, our elected officials, and your duty to respond in a responsible manner.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

[L. Coyote]

79. THE COVER-UP: Did Bush Commit Election Fraud?

The motivation behind "voter fraud" concerns extend beyond voter suppression. The misdirection also provides talking points for the conservative propaganda voices. I've heard their quick replies when I bring up election fraud and Kerry-Bush vote-switching.

There may have been a concerted effort to lay down cover for election fraud.

Here is one of the latest discussions: "...the effort perseveres and the myth that voter fraud is rampant is promoted even today by Republican operatives and others who should know better...."

The Long Road to Democracy
Did Bush Commit Election Fraud?
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/autorank/167

They know very well that Kerry-Bush vote-switching is evidenced!!
Do not expect the smoke screens to diminish soon.

[L. Coyote]

80. NEW PowerPoint highlighting the Election Fraud evidence

How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes
Inadvertent Wrong-Precinct Voting or Vote-Switching Fraud

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/precinct_switching.ppt